by Scott Baron
“It’s actually rather beautiful,” Finn said as he lay back on the soft ground, watching the lights flashing just beyond the atmosphere.
“If not for the very real possibility of some of our friends dying up there, I’d be inclined to agree with you,” Sarah said.
“Aw, hell. Even so, it’s still a pretty fine sight,” George interjected. “There’s death and violence everywhere you look, if that’s all you choose to see. But me? I’m with Finn. Life’s too precious to ignore the moments of beauty it presents us.”
Sarah turned to the unusual cyborg. He was scanning both the skies above and the terrain around them, aware of everything moving for several kilometers, yet he still found bandwidth to enjoy the light show up above.
“You’re an odd dude, George,” she finally said.
“Since you’re Daisy’s sister, which makes you just as much of a freak as she is, I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said with a low laugh.
A narrow pulse blast lit up the sky far across the horizon, the yellow-orange of a terrestrial impact brightening the night sky for a few moments as it reached its target.
“Looks like they didn’t get all of the terrestrial-aimed weapons,” Finn noted. “That’s one hell of a screw up.”
“To be fair, though, command never really thought they’d be able to stop them all,” George mused.
“No?”
“No. They just hoped to take out enough of them to give the people on the ground a chance to rise up, ya know? It’s not our forces that are going to turn the tide down here. It’s the locals.”
“But those pulse cannons––”
“Are tiny on the global scheme of things. Look, if you want context, the original battle plan reports estimated that the Ra’az battle stations would be able to incinerate ninety percent of the Chithiid population within three hours.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. Whoa,” George agreed. “So the fact that we’ve been down here all fucking day and haven’t been turned to toast is a pretty damn good sign in my book.”
“You know, you swear a lot, for a cyborg,” Sarah commented.
“Fuckin’ A,” George shot back with a grin.
Sarah was quiet a long while, then turned her attention back skyward.
“It is pretty,” she said.
While they settled down for the night, high up in the war zone surrounding the planet, their friends and allies had been working tirelessly, not only to defeat the orbiting Ra’az threat, but to save the billions on the planet below as well.
Freya and Marty had been working diligently, bursting in close to the battle stations and targeting crucial systems with pinpoint-aimed rail gun blasts.
Unlike pulse weaponry, there was no energy signature on the electromagnetically hurtled rail gun projectile, and thus, there was no easy way for the Ra’az gunners to backtrace an incoming attack until it was too late.
One by one, they had been swooping in, carefully taking down the targeting and operations control hubs that controlled the huge cannons aimed at the defenseless Chithiid population.
“Looks like our spies’ intel was spot-on,” Arlo said over his comms as he and Marty swung around an aimlessly firing cruiser as it tried to pinpoint the slippery stealth craft.
“And it’s a good thing,” Daisy agreed as Freya blasted out another salvo of rail gun sabots toward the hull of the hulking battle station, then quickly darted away.
“You get any updates on the other weapons systems?” Arlo asked. “Marty and me, we haven’t been able to pinpoint any of their weak spots. We’ve got the terrestrial cannons under control, it seems, but these other guns are still very hot.”
As if to punctuate his statement, a pulse cannon blasted out a shot, narrowly missing his craft, though, given their stealth capabilities, it was a random near-miss rather than a targeted one.
The pulse did eventually find a target, however, and deep within the human and rebel fleet, a smaller ship erupted from the deadly blast.
“Shit, they hit another one,” Daisy growled. “Come on, Freya, let’s light that fucker up. Hit ’em with everything you’ve got.”
“But our weapons will make us visible, Daisy.”
“I know,” she replied with a determined look in her eye. “That’s the point.”
“You’re going to have them target your kid?”
“Better than the fleet,” Daisy replied. “Freya’s a hot-shit pilot. I have every confidence she’ll keep us from being hit.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Sarah asked.
“Well, then I guess we’re fucked.”
“I can do it, Sarah,” Freya said bravely. “And Daisy’s right. We need to protect the fleet however we can.”
Without delay, she surveyed the battlefield and selected the optimum position for both diverting Ra’az fire, as well as making an escape without running into a blender of other ships’ fire.
“Okay. Hold on.”
She let loose with her pulse weaponry, which was substantial, though against a craft as massive and shielded as the Ra’az battle station, it had little effect. It did make for a pretty light show, however.
The Ra’az immediately opened fire on her position. Or more correctly, on what had been her position. Freya, on the other hand, was already darting to her next target, well clear of the Ra’az munitions.
“How many terrestrial cannons are left?” a Chithiid voice asked over open comms.
“Only two,” Arlo replied. “Aarvin, is that you?”
“Yes, it is.”
“We’re trying to get to them, but their defenses are dense,” Marty added.
As if to punctuate his statement, the cannons fired a barrage at the planet’s surface. Far below, tens of thousands of captive Chithiid died instantly in the ensuing blast.
“How much time do you need in order to shut down the system?” Aarvin asked.
“I don’t know. If we can get close enough, maybe a few minutes, if we’re lucky.”
The ship fired another barrage.
“Daze, they’ve locked on to a Chithiid-dense target. It’s genocide,” Sarah gasped.
“I know,” she replied.
“Know what?” Arlo asked.
Shit. Open comms.
“You’ve told Vince about me. The rest will know soon enough.”
“They’re targeting a densely populated area, Arlo. We can’t get in close enough for the shot. Can you?” Daisy said.
“We’re trying,” he replied as Marty dove and weaved, attempting to get closer to line up a clear shot.
The Ra’az weapon powered up once more, releasing another blast that would wipe out tens of thousands yet again, but as the pulses left the cannons, a massive Chithiid ship warped directly in their path, blocking the blast.
It shook from the impact, but their commander had apparently shifted all of their phase shielding to cover the point of impact. It left the rest of the craft vulnerable, but it did manage to absorb much of the pulse blast.
Much of it, but not all.
Part of the hull was rent open, and systems could be seen failing as compartments, compromised from the blast, vented to space.
“What are you doing, Aarvin?” Daisy asked as the Ra’az ship appeared to be powering up its cannons yet again.
“I am buying my people some time,” was his reply. “We are a crew of hundreds. Each weapons blast kills thousands. It was a simple calculus.”
“Shit,” Daisy groaned. “Arlo, you hear that?”
“Yeah.”
“You guys have gotta move. Fast. I don’t think their ship can take another hit like that.”
“We know. We’re already on it,” he said, and indeed they were. Marty was using all of his considerable maneuverability, powering through gaps in vessels and weapons fire where a ship simply shouldn’t be able to fit. Yet somehow, he made it happen, only barely singeing his hull.
The cannons fired another salvo, but a different craft warped in its path. It was
far smaller than Aarvin’s ship, however, and their brave move, while saving their commander, resulted in the instant destruction of their craft.
There would be no survivors.
“Freya, we’ve got to get a shot off. If we don’t, they––”
Daisy felt the slight shudder of the ship as the rail guns fired.
“We’re too far to get a target lock,” she said.
“For anyone else, maybe,” Freya said, grim determination in her voice. “I’ve been running calculations for the last two minutes. The sabot will have to pass through a smaller ship, but it should hold its shape, though velocity will diminish. Then, if we’re lucky––”
A small flash ignited on the surface of the battle station. A second later, one of the terrestrial-aimed pulse cannons fell dormant.
“Got ya, fuckers!” Freya said, jubilantly.
“Holy shit,” Daisy gasped. “Freya, did you just do a trick shot?”
“You mean like the old Earth game of pool? Yeah, kinda.”
“Goddamn, kiddo, that was impressive.”
“Thanks!” Freya chirped, her spirits rising. “But I don’t have a line on the other cannon.”
A flash ignited on the battle station far from their position, silencing the other cannon. The people on the surface, as well as Aarvin’s ship, were safe. Relatively, anyway.
“We got that one covered, Freya,” Arlo said. Daisy could swear she could hear his smile over the comms.
“Good work, guys,” she congratulated them. “You hear that, Aarvin? The cannons are down. Now get your ass out of there!”
“Our warp system appears to have been damaged, but we will do our best,” he said, as their craft turned and began limping for the safety of the main body of their fleet. Seeing the ship’s plight, a dozen smaller craft flew in formation behind it as it ran, firing all guns to provide it as clear a path of escape as possible.
The writing was on the wall, so to speak, and down below on the planet’s surface, the Ra’az strongholds began to power their weapons and set their troops in position as they prepared for battle. They had lost communications some time ago, but their short-distance comms were still functional, and from what they could discern, it was clear a massive attack was underway.
The vessels that had entered the atmosphere were smaller units, and the Ra’az defensive gunners were confident they would be more than a match for those piddling little ships.
Some ships or other craft––they couldn’t quite tell what they were from their limited information––had landed as well. That, along with rumors of numbers of their Chithiid workforce talking of open rebellion, was enough for them to send out their hunter-killer teams to put down any such uprising before it could amount to an actual problem.
The Ra’az were putting up a rather solid defensive perimeter at the edge of the atmosphere, effectively keeping out the multiple ships that were trying to reach the surface to assist in the battle, preventing their atmospheric entry.
For the time being, whoever was on the ground was on their own, but with the rebels hiding among the resident population, an uprising was indeed spreading, keeping the Ra’az spread relatively thin.
Battles were breaking out all across the globe as the long-oppressed Chithiid rose up to fight their brutal Ra’az overlords, as well as the Chithiid colluders who had worked to enslave their own people for generations.
The rebels embedded among them had taken great care in secreting pulse weapons to the surface in preparation for just such a moment, and as they were distributed to the enraged Chithiid, one thing was abundantly clear. Retribution would be as swift as it would be brutal.
A handful of smaller ships did manage to eventually pierce the blockade and fly down to the surface, but much to the Ra’az and their loyalists' surprise, they did not attack their fortified positions. Rather, they flew low over the housing barracks and gathering points of the Chithiid workforce, dropping bundles of some sort. It was only when the fighting erupted that the Ra’az realized what they had been doing.
They weren’t helping Chithiid escape. They were arming them. From the ferocity of the attacks, they had done a thorough job, it seemed.
In areas where the Chithiid had not been reinforced, however, packs of Ra’az and their loyalists moved through the countryside, hunting the rebels who had unsuccessfully attempted to foment revolution.
It would be a war of attrition, and the Chithiid, with billions on their side, had more than enough of a numerical advantage to reclaim their world. All they had ever needed was support in the form of weaponry. The arrival of those first arms, along with the rapidly spreading news that their families, long ago taken from them, had returned to fight for their freedom, lit a fire in their bellies that no amount of Ra’az oppression could extinguish.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You guys have got to try these,” Finn called out to George and Sarah.
“What did you find this time?” Sarah asked.
“They’re some sort of berry, but they have this weird kinda starchy texture and an almost mint family-like crispness on the back end of the flavor.”
“And that’s supposed to sound appetizing?” Sarah said with a little laugh. “You need to work on your sales pitch, Finn.”
“Bah! You just lack a sense of adventure!” he replied with a laugh.
“He says to the girl standing on a hostile planet light years from home in the middle of an intergalactic, interspecies war,” she shot back. “Nice try.”
George remained silent as they walked, letting the pair regain some semblance of normalcy to their previously strained relationship. There were still awkward moments, to be sure, but after the previous day’s madness, they had both woken having hit the reset button. At least somewhat.
Finn had happily taken up George’s challenge to find them a suitable breakfast from the native flora. At first the crazed chef was a bit reticent, but once he started taking samples from the entirely novel plants, his characteristic enthusiasm kicked back in full force.
It was a rather impressive spread he had eventually put together, truth be told, and the tension Sarah had been carrying in her shoulders seemed to lessen with every bite of the unusual foods as Finn regaled them with his tales of foraging.
“I just wish I had some spices,” he lamented.
“It tastes fine, Finn,” Sarah told him.
“Yeah, but just fine? It should taste amazing. My kingdom for a pinch of tarragon!”
“Well, given our resources, I think you’ve done an admirable job, Finn,” George said, patting him on the back. “And I bet once we’re back home, you’ll even find a way to replicate them with our machinery, and then––”
“And then I’ll be able to incorporate them into other dishes,” he said, his eyes growing wide with excitement. “Oh my God. I’ll be the first person to cook the Chithiid a proper, well-seasoned meal from food from their homeworld. Oh, man! They’re going to shit themselves!”
“I hope you’re speaking figuratively,” George joked.
“I don’t know,” Sarah commented. “Let this one loose in a kitchen with a bunch of things that you have no idea how they’ll interact with each other and who knows what the end result may be––including what comes out of your end.”
“Oh, seriously, Sarah?” Finn said, mock-offended.
She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, then took another bite of food. Later, she’d be glad for the extra sustenance he had provided, as they had a very long walk ahead of them.
They’d been trekking most of the day, following the trail of debris from Mal’s crashed pods, collecting what supplies they could salvage from the wreckage.
Several of the pods were perfectly intact, but the majority had suffered varying degrees of damage. To their relief, none contained any corpses, though there were some signs of minor bleeding in a few of them.
“Chithiid blood,” George said when they came upon yet another empty pod. “Doesn’t look severe, t
hough.” He quickly surveyed the grass for further signs of their allies. “They went that way. Looks like there were four of them, all Chithiid.”
“That’s the direction we saw the lights from last night,” Sarah pointed out.
“Yeah, you’re right on that one,” George replied. “Looks like they’re trying to reach a populated area to continue their mission. Ya gotta hand it to them. They’re just kids, really, and here they are, thrust in the middle of I don’t know what kind of shit-storm, and yet they’re sticking with the plan, despite undoubtedly being scared shitless.”
“Must be nice being a cyborg and not having to worry about being afraid,” Finn said.
“Oh, I get afraid,” George said. “Just because I’m mechanical doesn’t mean I have a death wish. Nope, the lack of fear is more likely to get you killed than the presence of it.”
“You been talking with Fatima?” Sarah asked.
“No, but if that’s her line of thinking, maybe I should. If we survive, of course.”
“Way to be a downer, man.”
“Just fuckin’ with ya, Finn. We’ll get through this. Just you wait and see.”
They padded on, following what George’s little drone had determined was the path of the other crashed pods before it gave up the ghost.
“It took a pretty hard knock when we came down,” George had noted a few hours prior, when the little device fell silently from the sky. “I’m just glad it worked at all, to be honest. Gave us a path to go on, at least. And if the scans I was able to save were right, there should be more survivors up by that small river it picked up not too far ahead.”
“No reply on comms, though?” Finn asked.
“Nope. Not even on my team’s comms, which likely means I’m the only non-organic on the planet at the moment.” He paused and looked around.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, I was just thinking I should plant a flag, or something. You know, claim this land in the name of the cyborg race.”
“Are you shitting me, man?” Finn said with an exaggerated sigh.
“Hey, you know the rules. No flag, no planet.”
